1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image processing apparatus and a medical image processing method for performing image processing on a medical input image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a field of medicine, observation and diagnosis of an organ in a body cavity using a medical instrument having an image pickup function have been widely performed. In a medical instrument having an image pickup function such as an endoscope apparatus, an elongated insertion portion is inserted into a body cavity, and an image of an organ in the body cavity is picked up by image pickup means provided at a distal end portion of the insertion portion. A surgeon performs observation and diagnosis from an endoscope image obtained by image pickup.
Endoscope images may be subjected to image processing such as color enhancement which improves visibility at diagnosis by an image processing apparatus or the like. An endoscope image obtained by image pickup, however, may include a halation portion, dark portion, or the like, and an accurate image processing result may not be obtained.
For the reason, an image processing apparatus which appropriately removes image data of a portion such as a halation portion or dark portion from which an accurate image processing result is not obtained such that image processing is accurately performed is proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 10-210454.